1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to the distribution of digital products and more specifically to techniques for linking software applications that are pre-installed on an electronic device to a user account on an online store.
2. Introduction
Manufacturers of electronic devices commonly offer customers a variety of available options to personalize and customize an electronic device prior to purchase. For instance, a personal computing device such as a computer can be customized by selecting the processor, memory, hard drive, or accessories. Manufacturers also cooperate with various software vendors to offer software applications or programs that can be purchased along with the computer and pre-installed before the customer takes delivery of the computer. Some software applications, which typically are created by the manufacturer but can also include third-party applications, can be pre-installed on the computing device free of charge either manually or as part of a default factory image, for example. Therefore, the hardware components and the pre-installed software can be personalized by a customer to ensure that the purchased product meets the customer's needs.
After the customer receives the electronic device, the customer may sometime in the future desire to reinstall or update the pre-installed software. For example, a software provider may have released an updated version of the software pre-installed on the electronic device. This is commonly known as a software update. To obtain the software update, the customer visits a physical or online store of the software provider and purchases or acquires the updated version of the software. However, this process is time consuming and sometimes confusing. Similarly, when a purchaser reformats the storage of the electronic device, the purchaser must typically reinstall the software. During reinstallation, the purchaser may be prompted for various compact discs (CDs) or other media containing the pre-installed software. However, the purchaser may have misplaced the CDs, thus making the reinstallation procedure quite cumbersome.